Artificial Nacre Epoxy Nanomaterials Based on Janus Graphene Oxide for Thermal Management Applications

Owing to the development of microelectronics, demands for excellent thermal dissipation materials have substantially increased. Learning from natural nacre, thermally conductive epoxy nanocomposites were prepared based on asymmetrically polydopamine-functionalized Janus graphene oxide (JPGO) scaffolds. The required highly oriented JPGO scaffolds were prepared via the bidirectional freeze-casting method. With the addition of epoxy resin, the resulting nanocomposite reveals anisotropic thermal properties. With the total content of the JPGO scaffold being 0.93 wt %, almost 35 times enhancement of in-plane thermal conductivity (perpendicular to the lamellar structure) (∼5.6 W m–1 K–1) has been obtained. The single-side-functionalized JPGO scaffolds play an important role in forming thermal conductive networks for the epoxy nanocomposites. Importantly, the nanocomposites present electrically insulating properties (>1014 Ω cm). Such high-performance nanocomposites have promising applications for thermal management in electronic devices.